Technology Diary: Smart Phones

After reading these articles regarding jobs in technology, Facebook, and Sheryl Sandberg and her book Lean In, my thoughts were immediately drawn to the technology of “smart” phones. As Kate Losse quotes from Lean In, “technology extends the weekday.” I think this is very accurate, especially in relation to smart phones. With a smart phone, everyone is always connected to everyone and everything else at all times. On my own phone I have Facebook, Twitter, and my email all constantly sending me notifications – as well as regular text messages and phone calls. Going home isn’t really the same as it was once was – with a break from everything. Even without my computer I am never really alone, never not connected to the outside world. And although I don’t have a full time job by any means, in the past year I’ve definitely caught myself using my phone to check my work email for my various internships.

I think this plays a huge role of the struggle of a working mother in the business world. Is it possible to be really alone with your kids, really focusing all of your time on them if you are constantly connected to work? I remember both of my parents getting emails all the time from their bosses on their phones, and although I was too old for it to make an impact, I feel perhaps this might not have the best effect on younger children who will see their parents being distracted by work even at home, and perhaps won’t feel as if they are being paid attention to. There’s definitely a double standard in the business world where this type of behavior – constantly checking the phone and talking to people from work – could be excused for a male, but women have the extra societal burden of being the primary caregivers of their children. Despite any agreement a woman and her husband may have worked out, she is more likely to be judged for using her smart phone and take time away from her children.

On the flip side, perhaps the smart phone is a good tool to help a working mother better balance her life. Since mothers are usually still the ones expected to take care of children (except in certain cases when couples have a better system worked out), their lives are filled with stress trying to learn to balance. The advent of computers and the internet makes it easier to work from home, and smart phones take it a step further. Perhaps someone can work on the train for a half hour on their phone, and then leave a half hour earlier to perhaps pick a child up from school? Since children of all ages seem to have phones nowadays, maybe the smart phone is a good way for a parent to connect with their child while at work. There are are a lot of different options the smart phone brings, so perhaps it isn’t such a bad thing at all because it makes things easier to juggle.